


The Worm Turns

by MiriamKenneath



Category: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Dark, F/F, Slavery, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 17:47:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16142336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiriamKenneath/pseuds/MiriamKenneath
Summary: Treade a worme on the tayle, and it must turne agayne. – John Heywood





	The Worm Turns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosecake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecake/gifts).



She carried no memory of her parents. She did not know if she was even properly born on Corellia.

Maybe, she used to tell herself, she was born amongst the stars, and someday she was destined to return from whence she came. It was a fine story. At least it helped her sleep at night.

Her earliest memory was of the red and blue marble mansion. It dwarfed all of the other houses in the neighbourhood, and no matter where she went, she was always in its shadow.

She was alone in those days. For what she needed, she stole when she could and scavenged rubbish bins when she must. Every night, she slept in whichever gutter was not yet occupied by vermin – whether human, non-human or animal – larger than she. Always, always, always, the red and blue marble mansion loomed overhead to remind her of that which she could never possess.

She was lucky; she’d never had to sell her body to men for a quick credit chit. But as she grew older, she came to understand that it was only a matter of time before her luck ran dry.

When that time came, she wanted it to be on _her_ terms.

It was audacious and stupid, her attempt to burgle that red and blue marble mansion – what did she expect to obtain there? Jewels? Fine silks? Something else that would miraculously transform her into a lady? Ha! Getting caught was only what she deserved.

As was being sold.

 

Coronet City law enforcement was corrupt. Everybody knew that, especially street orphans like Qi’ra.

Why should the good, upstanding taxpayers of Corellia have to spend their hard-earned fortunes looking after the riff-raff? What use would the riff-raff make of safety, comfort and a good education anyway? None! They were irredeemable.

Let the White Worms take care of them instead, law enforcement reasoned. Down in the catacombs, the sewers, the disused warehouses – out of sight, out of mind. Lady Proxima was always on the market for more scrumrats.

It wasn’t like law enforcement paid well. Everybody knew that, especially street orphans like Qi’ra. Nobody got rich quick handing out traffic tickets and chasing thieves. So maybe they _liked_ the idea that these orphans would be compelled to steal from the rich. That was rough justice…albeit not of the authorised sort.

Qi’ra had never laid eyes on a Grindalid before. Humans typically found their appearance – and their smell – repulsive, but Qi’ra was not a typical human. No, the first time she laid eyes on Lady Proxima, she saw that small fortune of bangles and decorative chains she wore upon her person, and she saw how lesser beings cowered before her in the gloom, _and she wanted it. She wanted it all._

This was lust. She was tingling, positively alight. Did she want Lady Proxima, or did she want to _be_ her? Maybe both? She didn’t know, but she decided that it didn’t matter.

Now she had a clear, concrete goal and a way to work toward it. She commenced that work without delay.

 

Grindalid females mate only once. Once is sufficient for a lifetime of fertilised eggs.

Unfortunately, imperfect evolution from mindless arthropod ancestors meant that laying had become difficult for the species. A midwife was required.

Qi’ra volunteered herself for that duty. She was the only one ever to do so.

The brine pool within which Lady Proxima dwelt was kept at a temperature perfectly calibrated for eggs and hatchlings. To Qi’ra, it felt warm, and the salinity of the water made floating effortless. It felt like flying. Sometimes, Qi’ra wondered if Lady Proxima’s pool was what the freefall of space was like.

Or if it was like returning to the womb.

The eggs came only with difficulty, and Qi’ra had to put her hands inside the birth canal to ease them out. Trust and intimacy and vulnerability. It would be so easy to kill a laying Grindalid female, and that inevitable realisation made Qi’ra feel powerful for the first time in her life. Whilst Lady Proxima burbled and shuddered her contentment – final release of an egg from the canal was the purest of ecstasies, undeniable, electric – Qi’ra would press her thighs together and clench her jaw so as not to cry out from her own orgasm.

Lady Proxima’s pool was deceptively deep, with countless nooks and crannies. Qi’ra saw where the eggs were placed. She saw where the hatchlings hid and congregated, so far down that not even the wan artificial light of the den above reached them. And she saw the secret caches of coaxium.

Within a year of her sale to the White Worms, Qi’ra had been made Head Girl.

The year after that, the scrumrats hit the red and blue marble mansion. Qi’ra led them. The loot taken was enough for three months of double portions for all.

 

And then, she was left behind.

She knew the reckoning would be bad, and it was.

Forced onto her knees at the edge of Lady Proxima’s pool. Exhausted and abject and pitiful. Screeches accusing her of betrayal. She’d been taken in and raised up, and this, _this_ , was how she thought to repay her benefactor?! Ungrateful bitch!! Cheers and jeers from the other scrumrats, who delighted in the spectacle of the Head Girl being metaphorically decapitated. Being beaten until the pain hazed her mind over –

But Qi’ra had put her hands inside Lady Proxima. She’d touched her offspring. She’d shared her pleasure. And she had unique, intimate knowledge of her softness, _her weakness_ –

Qi’ra let it happen. She would not be broken. Besides, it’d all be over eventually.

And sure enough.

She was sold that very night. Then, she was sold again. She became a bed slave, valued for her soft hands and softer orifices. Her mind was regarded as a forgotten, incidental – and on occasion outright inconvenient – appendage.

As were her ears.

They needed coaxium, her master’s master said. The Empire had a chokehold on legitimate sources; private enterprises had become reliant upon black market traders and their unauthorised supplies, but even those supplies were drying up. This was a problem, her master’s master said, and her master would solve it – or forfeit his life in the undertaking.

He’d been about to displace his impotent rage onto her, but Qi’ra saved herself.

She remembered what lay at the bottom of Lady Proxima’s brine pool. She shared that memory with her master. She said she would lead the raiding team.

 

* * *

_**-fin-** _


End file.
